Reading Sees Drop in Crime in First Quarter 2019

There’s good news from the Reading Police Department: the city saw a reduction in crime in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the first quarter of 2018. It was a 28 percent decline, marking a fairly significant improvement over the first several months of last year.

Police officials praised the work of their officers and the community at large. They also stated their commitment to keeping the trend going.

Making considerable strides

Reading police give a lot of credit to a new crime-fighting strategy that debuted in January after a spike in homicides and violence in 2018. The three-pronged strategy focuses on leadership accountability, community engagement and more effective resource deployment.

Throughout the last year, leaders in the department began thoroughly analyzing crime statistics in the city each week. They were able to better sort through and make use of the data they collected. For example, they realized that in January and mid-February, many burglaries were happening during the midnight shift. Knowing this, the shift commander engaged his team to take more proactive measures with combating burglaries. The result was that burglaries had the most significant drop, from 171 in Q1 2018 to just 71 in Q1 2019.

The police department continues to assess the way it uses data and how it engages its officers and community members to bring crime levels continually down.

If you have been arrested for a crime and need reliable legal counsel, meet with skilled Berks County criminal defense attorney David R. Eshelman.